Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

The agonizing wait is finally over: the Playstation 2’s premier killer-app title, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is here. MGS2 blew the collective socks off of the entire game industry when it was unveiled a year and a half ago at E3 2000, and continues to do so to this day. Simply put, MGS2 is a masterpiece that every gamer must experience. To discuss the storyline of Metal Gear Solid 2 in any form other than the beginning would almost certainly spoil part of the plot. That said, the story is deep, intricate, complex and full of surprises and revelations. In the beginning it appears to be a simple reconnaissance mission on a US Marine Corps tanker to uncover a secret nuclear weapon known as Metal Gear RAY, but the storyline immediately takes a turn when terrorists capture the ship with the intention of seizing the new weapon. Your character, the legendary soldier Solid Snake must stop the terrorists, but soon the plot thickens beyond anything he could have imagined.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game that heavily emphasizes using stealth to sneak by your enemies instead of running in with guns blazing. While the latter is possible to do, it will most certainly result in an untimely death. Instead, the best idea is to evade enemies and to slip by without them noticing. Stealth can be used in a number of ways, such as hiding inside of a box, using tranquilizer darts to put an enemy to sleep, knocking an enemy’s lights out before he can radio in for help, sticking an enemy up with a gun, distracting enemies with noise and sniping them from a distance. Sounds easy? Not quite. There could be complications. If you were noticed by an enemy before, they may be extra cautious and not fall for the box trick. If you blast enemies with a loud pistol, the others will hear it and call in the attack team. If you fail to hide the bodies of fallen foes, the other sentries will notice and bring in a squad to investigate. Being discovered in the first MGS game meant the alarm went off instantly. In MGS2, however, you are allowed to improvise and evade detection. If you can shoot an enemy’s radio, he won’t be able to call in for help. If you take him down before he can make a help call, the attack team won’t come. If however you interrupt his help call while it’s being made, the enemies on the other end will wonder what happened to him and send a unit to investigate. You can also sneak behind an enemy trooper and point a gun to his back and tell him to freeze. From there you can do almost anything. You can run in front of the enemy and point a gun at his face (or crotch) and it will frighten him into giving you an item. You can grab the enemy from behind and use him as a human shield or as a hostage to prevent the other enemies from firing at you. Or, you can simply shoot him anywhere to disable him. In major battles you must use much more force with assault rifles, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, stinger missiles and other weapons. A variety of stealth tools are available at your disposal such as thermal goggles, zoom scopes, mine detectors and disguises. Using the combination of weapons, tools, stealth and combat skills is essential to success in MGS2. The game is fun and rewarding with excellent control response and variety of techniques that seamlessly weave together in a brilliant combination of gameplay.

Graphically, Metal Gear Solid 2 is the most impressive looking PS2 title to date next to Gran Turismo 3. The game uses many cinematic graphic filters to heighten the mood of the cutscenes. Textures are well-detailed and character models have many polygons and animation nuances that are subtle but add tons of immersion to the overall feel of t he game. Tiny details manifest themselves as you play. For example, if you shoot a bucket of ice, the pieces spill out and land everywhere. The cubes in close proximity to each other melt more slowly than the cubes separated from the others. Details like this are commonplace in MGS2. The game’s environments are massive and immersive and the well fleshed-out characters suit them perfectly.

The audio in Metal Gear Solid 2 is also a grand accomplishment. Game director Hideo Kojima hired music composer Harry Gregson Williams (Enemy of the State, The Rock) to create the game’s majestic musical score. Needless to say, I am buying the MGS2 Soundtrack as soon as it is available: it is that good. Sound effects are crisp and clear as well and play a vital role in the game. Loud footsteps and gunshots will catch an enemy’s attention while quite sounds from a silenced gun will almost never alert the troopers. Home theater owners will be pleased to know that the cutscenes in MGS2 support Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. The voice acting in the MGS series has always been superb, easily as good as a high-budget film. The performance in MGS2 is a benchmark for voice acting in all video games. The entire voice cast from the original MGS are back, playing as their characters again; fans of the first game will be thrilled to hear old favorites returning once more to the fray.

To call MGS2 a killer-app would be an understatement: it is a must-have for all game players. It is the type of game many are willing to buy a PS2 for. And given Sony’s one-year exclusive agreement on MGS2, it is unlikely that the game will head to any other game consoles for a long time. Although the hype for MGS2 has been intense, Kojima and his crew have certainly lived up to it. They have brought together the best elements of gaming together in an unforgettable cinematic masterpiece.

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